circle one sends up schick

Schick is launching (yawn) another one of the consumer generated contests where they are asking people to upload videos of themselves, the brand, blah, blah, blah. Just as predictable as the concept is the fact that they are not supporting it, at least at this point, with any awareness-building vehicles.

I base this on the press release, which listed no additional support, and the fact that, as of my checking it this evening, the initial video to announce the promotion, which has been posted for a week, has a mere 38,000 views. For all of the money they surely spent on this site, one expects that they had planned for wider reach.

Someone, somewhere, is sitting in a cube wondering why the promotion hasn’t taken off virally the way that they expected it to. And a blogger, here at the Daily (Ad) Biz or maybe over at the Toad Stool, is telling them again that they really out to allocate some space in their budget for more traditional advertising tactics that could be used, say, to tell consumers about the contest, tell them why they should check it out and direct them to the site.

At any rate, Schick’s press release to AdPulp announcing the program was filled with legalese and typed (r)’s meant to represent the registered trademark symbol – a simply fabulous piece of corporate communication. Upon receipt of the press release, AdPulp announced their own consumer generated contest: the first agency to find a way to take the mickey out of Schick (r) and their legalese and get adpulp.com worked into a video would get fifteen minutes of fame and a link on AdPulp.

The video is certainly rough around the edges, but it was done in only thirty minutes and, having worked on a shaving account earlier in my career, I appreciated the focus on confidence and mojo and close shave – the talking points of any brand and any razor.

It’s the myth of consumer-generated. When the brand supplies all the media clips or logos, puts limits on people they wouldn’t even put on their agency, where’s the consumer-generated part? Given that, live monkeys with iMovie could create a spot. This trend is really consumer-generated response. Originality went out the door a long time ago.